The two promises of Gawain are pivotal points of the poem, and all the tension of the narrative is centred upon his adherence to their terms. The blind promises that 80 Gawain makes to the Green Knight and Bertilak constantly place him into trying situations where both his honour and chastity are probed in the context of his truthfulness to his word and the code he believes that he lives by. The promises of Gawain are necessary for the narrative progression, but their function is more significant than that of plot devices. Susanne Sara Thomas notes that “the Gawain-poet challenges the reader to question the nature and validity of all oaths and promises.” 81 The reader is invited to deliberate over whether all promises should indeed be kept, as the poet rebukes a moral fundamentalism that treats all oaths as equal in value. Susanne Thomas notes the distinct lack of attention given by critics 82
Sr. Imogen Baker, O.S.B. The King’s Household in Arthurian Court from Geoffrey of Monmouth to
78
Malory (Washington, DC : Catholic University of America, 1937), 116.
Lewis, C.S. “The Anthropological Approach.” English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R.
79
Tolkien on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, edited by Norman Davis and C.L. Wrenn. London:
Allen and Unwim, 1962. 219-30.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics: and other essays (Dublin: Harper Collins Publishers,
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2006), 54.
Susanne Sara Thomas, “Promise, Joke, or Wager? The Legal (In)determinacy of Oaths in Sir Gawain
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and the Green Knight” Exemplaria 10:2, (1998): 287-305.
Victoria L Weiss, “Gawain's First Failure: The Beheading Scene in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green
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Knight’,” The Chaucer Review 10, no. 4 (1976): 361-66.
towards the “essential treachery and legal insubstantiality of the oaths.” In support 83 of her argument she cites Aquinas: “if a man has promised something evidently unlawful, because he sinned in promise, then he did well to change his mind.” The 84 absurdity of the oath is already evident in the game: it is self-evidently unlawful to arbitrarily behead a person as Christmas fun. Susanne Thomas substantiates this claim by referring to the nature of legal agreements in the fourteenth-century to further show the nature of Gawain’s promises rendered them not binding. She puts forward an argument showing that Gawain was under no legal or moral obligation to fulfil either of his promises. This view of the poem shows the effects of the changing legal systems of the Middle Ages, suggesting a nostalgia for a former age of England, when agreements where all promises of truth, rather than written up legal agreements. 85 Enlightening as this approach is, the narrative as a whole reflects more of an interest in morality than in legality. The poet has a vested interest in showing how different virtues operate under particular circumstances, and the main function of the agreements between Gawain and the Green Knight is to facilitate the creation of those circumstances
Susanne Thomas’ observation, that the promises were perhaps not understood by contemporary readers as morally or legally binding, is certainly a significant point to be aware of, but it is without doubt equally significant that Gawain’s character, in his superlative world of Romance, believes the oaths to be binding. A legal and ethical examination of the binding nature of the promises is not unimportant. In the fourteenth-century perhaps an unwritten agreement with an anonymous man would not have been considered binding, but it must not be forgotten that the story is a Romance narrative filled with magic; the question remains as to what extent the poet is balancing his serious themes with his fantastic setting. It is most important to note the fact that Gawain did believe himself bound to keep his promise, for in making this the central focus, the discussion is orientated towards evaluating his response to this
‘obligation’. And it is within the framework of this perceived obligation that the poet comments upon human nature and in particular the role of the conscience.86
Ibid., 2.
83
Aquinas, ST, II-II,110,3 ad. 2.
84
Thomas, Promise, Joke or Wager, 305.
85
Louis Blenkner, “Sin, Psychology, and the Structure of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Studies in
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Philology 74, no. 4 (1977): 354.
Geoffrey Chaucer also used blind promises to facilitate scenarios wherein their characters must weigh up the importance of their word. Gawain’s contract with the Green Knight is similar in characterization and outcome to Dorigen’s oath to Aurelius in The Franklin’s Tale, in that neither expects that they will have to fulfil their end of the bargain, and neither would have had occasion to if the antagonists had not used magical deception. The blind promises and intrusion of magic enable both poets to 87 create scenarios wherein their characters’ truth is weighed against another good.
Dorigen must forgo her fidelity to her husband, or break her truth. Similarly Gawain must seek out his own execution, or break his truth. The decision of both protagonists reflects the priority of truth in medieval ethical and moral thought. Dorigen 88 considers ending her life to avoid fulfilling her end of the bargain, but like Gawain she does not consider breaking her trouthe to be an option:
"Allas," quod she, " on thee, Fortune, I pleyne, That unwar wrapped hast me in thy cheyne,
Fro which t'escape woot I no socour, Save oonly deeth or elles
dishonour; Oon of thise two
bihoveth me to chese.
But nathelees, yet have I levere to lese My lif than of my body to have a shame, Or knowe myselven fals, or lese my name.” (1355- 1362)
When her husband returns, he reiterates the same viewpoint, advising her to keep her promise: “But if ye sholde youre trouthe kepe and save. Trouthe is the hysete thing that man may kepe.” (770 – 771) In a similar way the Gawain-poet suggests that Gawain should, above all keep his trouthe. He does this in an emphatic way when he addresses Gawain directly:
Now þenk wel, sir gawan, for woþe þat þou ne wonde þis auenture for to frayn
þat þou hatz tan on honed. (487 – 490)
Gerald Morgan, “Boccaccio’s Filocolo and the Moral Argument of the Franklin’s Tale,” The
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Chaucer Review 20, no. 4, (1986): 286,
Armand A. Maurer, “A Thomist looks at William James's notion of truth,” The Monist 57, no. 2
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(1973): 151-67.
The poet breaks from his role as a distant narrator, and addresses Gawain directly. 89 This dramatic narrative technique highlights the tension of the internal conflict that also confronts Gawain. When the poet, who orchestrates the entire plot, momentarily extricates himself from this role, he then offers the reader a moment of suspended belief, and the chance to think of Gawain as an autonomous individual. In this moment he warns Gawain against ‘wonde’ (488), a word that Tolkien and Gordon define as ‘to shrink from or neglect something due to fear’. The danger or ‘woþe’ 90 that might prompt him to neglect the keeping of his word is a very real fear of death.
Gawain knows that he lacks the Green Knight’s miraculous ability to survive the blow of the axe, seeking out the Green Chapel is then effectually seeking out his own death.
Nonetheless the poet exhorts him to keep his word, regardless of the cost.
The Green Knight also reiterates the gravity of Gawain’s oath before departing from the court:
‘Loke, Gawan, þou be grayþe to fo as þou hettez, And latye as lelly til þou me, lude, fynde,
As þou hatz hette in þis halle, herande þise knyȝtes’ (448 - 450)
He allows Gawain no opportunity to dismiss the whole affair as a foolish Christmas game: ‘Þerfore com, oþer recreaunt be calde þe behoues’ (456). Arthur’s knights do not seem to share the same moral conviction that he should keep his word. Rather than commending him for his loyalty to his word, they lament the threatened loss of such a good knight:
For to counseyl þe knyȝt, with care at her hert.
Þere watz much derue doel driuen in þe sale
Þat so worthe as Wawan schulde wende on þat ernde, To dryȝ a delful dynt, and dele no more
Wyth bronde. (556 - 560)
The poet reasserts the moral preeminence of Gawain in his almost nonchalant response:
þhe kniȝt mad ay god chere, And sayde, ‘quot schuld I wonde?
Of destines derf and dere
What may mon do bot fonde?’ (562 - 565)
The Medieval Romance is a superlative genre that typically deals with high ideals. The poet
89
problematizes these ideals with extreme scenarios, and highlights the importance of such moments by addressing Gawain directly. This intrusion of the narrator’s voice proves problematic to Foucault’s argument towards minimising the significance of the author’s voice.
J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, eds., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
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1983), 229.
His cheerfully phrased rhetorical questions suggest a distinct absence of fear on his part, as he seems to have risen to the detached level of a Stoic.
The relationship between ideal words and conduct in the courtly context are challenged later in the poem, and collapse under the weight of human emotion. The events of fitts three and four will reveal his deep fear of death, and yet this natural fear does not detract from his character in the eyes of others in the poem, and certainly gives it real depth for the reader. His decision to seek out the Green Chapel would in fact not be an act of true courage if he had no fear of death. It is necessary that Gawain retain the natural fear of death, for the poet exemplifies in him an authentic figure of courage. Josef Pieper speaks of this necessity of fear in any act of courage, building upon the Thomistic understanding of virtue:
“Fortitude presupposes in a certain sense that man is afraid of evil; its essence lies not in knowing no fear, but in not allowing oneself to be forced into evil by fear, or to be kept by fear from the realization of good.”91
Gawain fulfils these conditions when he goes in search of the Green Chapel. His natural fear of death prompts him to break his truth, and yet he overcomes this impulse in an act of authentic fortitude. The framework of blind promise enables the poet to create a scenario wherein Gawain must weigh up his life beside his truth.
Other Arthurian romances recount tales of knights setting off on perilous quests, but they have a hope of surviving and winning glory, while Gawain seems to have no 92 reason to hope for either. Readers of the poem, along with Gawain, are put in the situation where they must ask if one ought always do the honourable thing, regardless of the implications. There is no material motivation for Gawain to keep his promise other than his simple adherence to righteousness and justice. By the discouragement of his fellow knights, and the seeming certitude of death, the Gawain-poet shows the dignity in acting for virtue’s own sake. The poet gives little reason for the reader to suppose that Gawain sought out the chapel for any other reason. Gawain’s search for the Green Chapel does then become emblematic of the man who seeks justice for its own sake. 93
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 126.
91
Chrétien de Troyes: Yvain, Lancelot, Erec and Enide etc.
92
Norman O Dahl, “Plato's Defense of Justice,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51, no. 4
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(1991): 809-34.
Gawain’s search for justice for its own sake evokes a pervasive concern of Western literature, and parallels that of the man described in The Republic, who seeks justice though it costs him his life. Plato is unlikely to be a direct source, but his exposition of moral philosophy lies at the foundation of Western tradition, and his ideas were mediated through the works of philosophers like Aquinas. Plato says that when justice is praised, it is often only the appearance of justice that is being considered. For, in discussing the desirability of justice, one often only hears of its effects. He says “No one has ever censured injustice or commended justice otherwise than in respect of the repute, the honors, and the gifts that accrue from each.” He 94 goes on to note that none have yet written on the true essence of justice, explaining why it is a good that one should strive after, even if no good seems to come from it.
Plato argues why justice is a good in and of itself, irrespective of the effects that may, or may not, come from the practice of it:
…but what each one of them [justice and injustice] is in itself, by its own inherent force, when it is within the soul of the possessor and escapes the eyes of both gods and men, no one has ever adequately set forth in poetry or prose
—the proof that the one is the greatest of all evils that the soul contains within itself, while justice is the greatest good.95
This is the very task that the Gawain-poet sets out to fulfil: to show that justice is worthwhile for its own sake. Like Plato the purifies his argument and character by removing any discussion of gain. Plato says that the person who is whipped, put on the rack, branded with hot irons and crucified for justice’s sake is still better off than the unjust man who enjoys every kind of comfort.96The Gawain-Poet suggests that it is better for Gawain to leave the comfort of court life and seek out Green Chapel, not because he will merit anything by it, but because of justice.
Plato comments that when discussing justice, you must speak of a just man who does not have the reputation of justice. “Unless you take away the true repute and attach the false, we shall say that it is not justice that you are praising but the
Pieper, Cardinal Virtues, 362a.
94
Ibid., 367a.
95
Plato, The Republic: Plato, trans. Benjamin Jowett (The World Publishing Co., 1946), 245.
96
semblance.” Plato holds that it is only when we speak of a just man, who is not 97 thought be so, that the intrinsic worth of justice can be explored with clarity. He notes:
We must, indeed, not allow him to seem good, for if he does he will have all the rewards and honors paid to the man who has a reputation for justice, and we shall not be able to tell whether his motive is love of justice of love or the rewards and honors.98
Gawain does not suffer the scorn and derision of the just man in Plato’s example. It is enough, however, that the knights were disapproving of his quest. Their lack of praise reveals that it is not out of vainglory that Gawain seeks out the Green Chapel. If the 99 other knights had suggested that he was bound to keep his word, it might reasonably be inferred that his departure was prompted by the desire to maintain his reputation.
The poet however makes it clear that he would suffer no censure if he remained. He is in fact criticized by his fellow knights for departing. “Bi Kryst, hit is scaþe þat þou, leude, schal be lost, þat art of lyf noble!” (674) This point is stressed again at the end of the poem when Gawain is nearly at the Green Chapel and Bertilak’s messenger tells him that if he turns back, none will know of it. Throughout the story readers are reminded that Gawain kept his truth for its own sake, and not to avoid the censure or calumnies of Arthur’s court.